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My Poker Book Reviews

The game of Poker. There are different theories about the origin of Poker. Most likely it developed from the French card game Pogue and migrated through Canada to the US. The modern details of Poker, from dealing to betting, didn’t appear until the early 1800’s in the Mississippi area.

The modern Renaissance of Poker happened in the 1970’s with the start of the World Series of Poker, peaking in the early years of the 21th Century. It doesn’t seem that the peak is reached at the moment. There is barely a moment every day when you are not able to find a TV channel viewing a Poker Tournament.

The different Tournaments during the World Series of Poker started a development of many Internet Sites which offer Online Poker Games at any time to everybody. This in return changed Poker into a major Spectator Sport.

Poker is the name of a whole series of variations build around a common set of rules for betting on the best hand. The variations between the different games are the way of dealing, the number of rounds of betting and the kind of the winning hand. While in most of the variations the highest hand will win, there are games which favor the lowest hand and games where the win is split between the lowest and the highest hand. Another major difference is the limit of the amount of money per bet.

The first and most important think to know and memorize in Poker is the Ranking of the different possible hands. All final hands in Poker are made from 5 cards.

Let’s start with the lowest Hand:

• High Card (The cards in the players hand contain several suits and are in no particular order – The Highest Card in the Hand defines the Rank of the Hand. The Cards are ranked in the following order: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen , King, Ace. If two Players show the same high Card, than the second highest card in each hand will determine the winning Hand).

        

• One Pair (Two Cards of the same Rank. The highest Pair will win if several Hands with Pairs have to be compared. The highest card of the remaining odd cards will determine the winning hand if two player show the same pair).

        

• Two Pair (Two different Pairs in one hand. The highest Pair in the hand defines the Rank of the "Two Pair"-Hand. If two first pairs rank the same in one game than the second pair decides the winning hand. The remaining odd Card declares the winning hand in a situation with both Pairs the same for two players).

        

• Three of a Kind (Three Cards of the same Rank. The highest "Three of a Kind" will win if several Hands with the same hand have to be compared).

        

• Straight (Five consecutive cards of different suits. In cases of a Straight for several Players, the highest card in any Straight decides over the win. Aces can count high or low).

        

• Flush (Five Cards of the same Suit. . The highest Card in the Flush decides over the rank of the Flush. In the case of Flushed with the same high card, the second highest card defines the winning hand).

         

• Full House (One "Three of a Kind" and one "Pair" in one Hand. The higher "Three of a Kind" would decide over the winning hand in the case of several "Full House" in one game).

        

• Four of a Kind (Four Cards of the same Rank. The highest odd card in a hand will decide the winner if several players share the same "Four of a Kind").

        

• Straight Flush (Five consecutive cards of the same suit).

        

• Royal Flush (A Straight Flush from).

        

 The images for the cards are created by John Fitzgibbon (see:  http://freeware.esoterica.free.fr/html/freecards.html)

The most popular Poker Games are:

• Texas Hold’em: This is the most popular Poker Games at the moment. Every player gets 2 (hole) Cards dealt – face down. After a round of betting, the dealer deals 3 community cards (“Flop”) face up with another round of betting. The next card is also dealt face-up and called the “Turn”. An additional round of betting is followed by the last card, again face-up. There is a last round of betting. The winner is the player with the best Hand created with any combination out of the Player’s 2 cards and the 5 community cards.
• Omaha Hold’em: Omaha Hold’em is very similar to Texas Hold’em. The difference is that every player gets 4 hole cards before the first betting. Betting and the rest of the dealing are like at Texas Hold’em. The winning hand has to be build using of two cards from the Player’s hand and three community cards.
• Omaha Hi Low: Same rules for dealing and betting as with Omaha Hold’em. The betting pot id split between the highest and the lowest hand on the table. For this, every Player can use 2 of their hole cards and three community cards for their lowest and highest hand. These can be different cards for both hands.
• Seven Card Stud: Each player is dealt two cards face-down and one face-up. The lowest card starts the first round of betting. After the betting, every Player, still in the game will get another face-up card. The player with the highest hand (face-up) is starting this round of betting. Another face-up card is dealt to every Player followed again by a round of betting. The last round is one card face-down for every player with the last round of betting. The highest hand build from 5 out of the 7 cards wins.
• Seven Card Stud Hi Low: Dealing and betting follows the same rules as for Seven Card Stud Poker. The betting pot is split between the highest and lowest hand. Each player will create their highest and lowest hand using always 5 from their 7 cards.

There are many other Poker games available. Wikipedia or Internet in general are good sources for additional games or more detailed descriptions on the mentioned variations.

Here are some interesting numbers:

In a poker game with a deck of 52 cards are 2,598,960 different dealt hands possible.

• 1,098,240 of these hands include a "Pair" or 42.2% of all hands (every one out of 2.4 hands).
• 123,552 hands or 4.75% include "Two Pair (every one out of 21 hands).
• 54,912 hands or 2.11% include a "Three of a Kind" (every one out of 47 hands).
• 10,200 hands or 0.392% are a "Straight" (every one out of 255 hands).
• 5,108 hands or 0.197 % are a "Flush" (every one out of 508 hands).
• 3,744 hands  or 0,144% are a "Full House" (every one out of 694 hands).
• 624 hands or 0.0240 % include a "Four of a Kind" (every one out of 4,165 hands).
• 36 hands or 0.00139% are a "Straight Flush" (every one out of 72,193 hands).
• 4 hands or 0.000154% are a "Royal Flush" (every one out of 649,740 hands).

These are numbers for 5 random cards out of a deck of 52 cards. It still can give you a brief idea about where to place a hand you got dealt.

A much more precise way to calculate your chances to build a specific hand out of the cards you already have in you hand is by counting the outs you have. The number of different cards that are still in the deck which can be dealt for you to create a winning hand are called "Outs". To discuss specific strategies how to use the number of outs is way outside the scope for this blog. The same is true about strategies how to play (bet on ) different hands. There are many strategies and even more books and articles about these subjects. The "Poker Books on the Internet" part of this blog will discuss some of these books. 

 

This Blog (Ivory said so) is about Poker Books.

 

And this is Ivory.